Multilingualism and Language Attitudes: Local Versus Immigrant Students' Perceptions

Abstract

Spain took in more immigrants than any other European country in 2005, a fact which has had a clear impact on the education system. This paper examines the language attitudes held by 125 local or autochtonous (42.4%) and immigrant (57.6%) students in the Basque Country. The results showed that both groups of students held rather negative attitudes towards Basque, whereas their attitudes towards Spanish were very favourable. As for English, immigrant students' attitudes were far more positive than those of their local counterparts. Finally, the immigrant students' attitudes towards their own languages were the most positive in the battery. The participants' responses confirm the need to include a language awareness component in the Basque secondary education curriculum.

Keywords:

• Immigration
• multilingualism
• language attitudes

Acknowledgements

This study was made possible thanks to a research grant awarded by the Department of Education, University and Research of the Basque Government (IT-202-07) and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (SEJ2001-06723-C02-02/EDUC).